why i blog

so why do you blog? - my 2016 answer

Getting hammered with medical school rejections and just wanted to talk it out. No one really wants to talk about failures. But a blog seems like a good way of doing so. At the time i feel like a lot of people count me out and i just felt, look if i don’t make my goals, at least i can say i’ve tried and maybe someone else could do things a bit different and a bit better in their own journey.

so why do you blog? - my 2019 answer

blogs are so brilliantly relateable. How else are you gonna find someone going through the same of emotions and circumstances whilst you’re tucked up in your Lockdown Room sipping on Instant Cappucino. Long live the blog.

right im bored now - so why do you blog? - my 2023 answer

and so as the years have gone by - blogging has just been a big experiment of translating how i’d speak into text. i’m pretty poor at speaking how i’m feeling. i always try and take out of the ‘feel’ in my answers. its just what i try and do. and so i like journalling as a way of speaking through situations that i wouldn’t normally speak about.

i also feel like a journal a bit more reflectivey, where as a diary a bit more descriptivey. also calling it a journal rather than diary avoids tremendous ridicule from the nurses. looking at you elisha.

hmm so what’s the future

well i achieved my goal of being a doctor so what next?

so what are you gonna change

probably not a lot. lots of why and what i can do better i guess. Louis Theroux, the guy that asks loads of whack people, lots of wack questions - he has a point ‘why is always a more interesting question than how.’ how on earth did you end up on the isle of wight for your first two years as a junior doctor? i could answer that in two sentences. but maybe a better question is - why actually the isle of wight has been a great place for me so far.

we won’t get too existential on the idea of why. firstly, there’s many more smart people out there that can explain shit way better than me. and secondly, how is still a good question. ‘why are you running half-marathons in your spare-time.’ i got no fuckin clue. ‘so you’re a runner now - how do you feel about it?’

the inspiration

A blog called ‘Grumpy Biomed’ - a diary of a quintessential Biomedical Science student dreaming of studying medicine was read by me over 20 times perhaps. This was all pre-youtube (or pre-productivity medical youtube). This guy also did a postgrad degree. There really wasn’t anyone else who chronicled their feelings so regularly, beautifully and so relateably. That blog has since sadly been deleted and his follow-up medical school blog has gone offline too.

Nonetheless back in 2020, I came across Paeds Registrar who has just been awarded a Paeds Oncology Training Post. A Paeds Onc Training Post is a massive grind - you’re talking about a specialty niche that has some of the best communicators, best academics and best overall people. There’s like 4 posts in the country each year en route to consultancy. So anyway her blog runs all the way back to her penultimate year of medical school. A treasure trove of relateable emotion. There is method to this madness.